Closing down failing schools is not an evil thing to do

We must be more ruthless about success in education (Photo: Bloomberg)

Imagine a school where there is an evil headmistress who, behind the school walls, is actually running an institution that is training children to be child labourers later on in life. The children enter the premises dressed in uniform, keen to learn, but when they cross the school gates they are given a magic potion that means they can’t quite articulate what goes on behind those school walls. Parents regularly complain that their children do not learn and develop their minds as they would like. They can’t put their finger on it, but they know deep down that their children are being afflicted by the most terrifying and inhumane experiences. But no one is listening to their cries. The parents are poor, often with little English, and have no voice at all.

Then imagine that somehow someone infiltrates this dreadful place, so awful that people in the community change their routes to work, simply to avoid its horror. A journalist gets inside one day, and as a result, manages to expose what has been happening behind these old school walls. Incidents including grievous bodily harm, rape, theft and serious bullying are what these poor children endure. They learn very little while becoming adults who are equipped as fodder for the capitalist machine.

Luckily there is a great and powerful wizard who rules the earth, and upon hearing news of the fate of these children, he decides to obliterate the school with his magic wand. But before he does this, he frees all the little children from the child labour factory, and sends them to good schools where they can learn properly. What an excellent Hollywood film! I am certain that the audience would be thrilled that, in the end, good conquers evil, and the little children are saved.

Isn’t it odd then that in modern Britain, if something similar were to happen, we, the public, would be outraged that the wizard had made such a decision. So brainwashed are we into believing that the only way to support our children is to insist, against all the evidence, that ALL of our state schools are wonderful, idyllic places of learning, that no matter what is said of our schools, no matter how many horror stories we hear, we will shut them out, as if by magic, and stick our heads in the sand, insisting that all is well and, by very definition, the closing of any school is bad.

So the very notion that free schools may bring competition into the school market, and therefore prompt the closure of a failing school is wicked. Closing a school, even if it is failing the children, is bad, by very definition. But the people who are outraged and campaigning for the continued existence of these bad schools never send their own children to them. Oh, no! They wouldn’t think of it. They simply insist that parents who are from a different class or colour send their children to these institutions, presumably to ensure that there will always be a guaranteed number of adults, later on, who will do the jobs that their children would never consider as a career.

Getting rid of bad schools is a good thing. It can ONLY be a good thing. Providing our children with better schools is also a good thing. If the new free schools or academies end up being bad, then they should close: simple. If they are good, then we should rejoice. We get it when we watch Hollywood films. In our fantasies, we want what is best for our children. Why don’t we get it in real life?